The poem was written by Jenifer Toksvig and was inspired by stories and first-hand testimonies from refugees forced to flee their homes and items they took with them.

One of the sources for the poem was Brian Sokol’s photography project, ‘The Most Important Thing,’ made in collaboration with UNHCR. Many of Brian’s photos, along with firsthand accounts from the refugees he photographed, are featured in the film.

Released exclusively on Facebook, the film urges people to sign the #WithRefugees petition to help ensure refugees have the basics to build back their lives – an education, somewhere safe to live and the opportunity to work.

But also, a lot of those are filled with violence, shooting, bombs, and people doesn´t really seem to think it´s a problem. But what happens when it becomes reality!?

Or more, what happens when reality takes over the video game?

In an effort to raise awareness of the situation of children in South Sudan, UNICEF embarked on an unusual kind of campaign.

They sent an actor, a film crew and two South Sudanese youth to a major video game convention in Washington, D.C., and we were given a keynote address slot to pitch an exciting new video game to an audience of gaming enthusiasts.

The gamers in the room were real, as were their reactions and the footage that UNICEF captured for this short film.

In 2014, disasters and crises have affected children in many parts of the world. In South Sudan, which only a few years ago celebrated its independence, food crisis and conflict during the past year have had deadly consequences for children.

Raising awareness is just one step toward helping the children of South Sudan, who are living every day in a life-or-death situation, and it is not a game.

[EN] Today, Malala Yousafzai, is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize 2014, the youngest ever person to receive the award, n recognition of their shared courage and bravery in the struggle for education and children’s rights.

But also today, on International Human Rights Day, Malala issued an open letter to world leaders, asking them to raise their ambition in 2015. ‘This is our chance to commit to do better’, Malala says to world leaders in her letter ‘…I am issuing a call today to urge you to raise your ambition. If the right decisions are made and kept we could see the beginnings of a better future in 2015. A future of “lasts”, rather than half measures.’

But also In honour of Malala Yousafzai, Plan International Brazil and more than 40 young girls around the world, reproduced her most famous speech about the education for all girls… so I leave you with a bit of inspiration!

We are 60 diverse young people from all continents of the world who met in Rustler’s Valley, South Africa from November 16 to 19, 2014 to discuss the state of civil society around the world and consider our role as young people within it. We do not claim to speak for all youth, or for the diverse views from within our own countries, but rather we seek to lend our voices to the on-going debate about the role of civil society in the social, political and economic transformation of the world. We also want to respond to and further develop the conversation begun by the Open Letter for Activists as young people engaged at grassroots, national and international levels.

Increasingly, the face of civil society around the world is a young one. Yet, we recognize much may be learned from other generations; their struggles, histories and lessons. Although we will face many of the challenges of the future, we believe that with intergenerational partnerships and a shared responsibility, we can transform civil society and therefore global society.

Current strategies to address restrictions on civil society space are failing. To create the necessary space at the national level, we should develop radical tactics to mobilize non traditional civil society groups, create platforms for international solidarity, and develop safe spaces where we can come together in a conducive environment to address these issues.

After much reflection, we collectively arrived at four primary topics of concern to those present: race, gender and sexual orientation; democratization of our own organisations and power structures; reform of relationships between civil society and donor organisations; and the divide between grassroots movements and civil society organisations (CSOs).

Eliminating discrimination: Race, gender and sexual orientation

As youth, we witness and experience the on-going reality of discrimination in civil society based on race, gender, and sexual orientation. We call on all sectors, especially media, governmental, non-governmental, and religious organizations, and the private sector to acknowledge and combat discriminatory practices. Civil society should lead the way by respecting diversity and completely eliminating all forms of discrimination from our own environments.

Democratization of CSOs and power structures

As youth, we acknowledge that current political, social and economic systems and organizational structures favour the few, not the many. We emphasize our duty to democratise:

Public dialogue through the use of inclusive and accessible language to broaden participation and break down the hierarchy among civil society and the communities we seek to serve.

Structures of power that prevent us from collaborating across issues and themes to establish civil society-wide avenues of influence and the elevation of our collective voice.

Access to intergovernmental and civil society processes for local and grassroots social movements.

Relationships between large civil society organizations and grassroots movements through the adoption of and respect for higher ethical standards.

Additionally, we should establish new methods of ensuring transparency, through the development of:

Conflict of interest indices;

Organization-wide gender parity measures;

Reporting on executive salaries and board fees;

Cooperation indices, and;

Mechanisms that ensure the full integration of all stakeholders into decision-making processes, including volunteers.

As youth, the driving force of our work is our own vision, passion and values. To better serve those with whom we work, we must question the current relationships between donors and recipients. We pledge to:

Acknowledge the need to be financially autonomous through self-sustainability.

Mobilize unions through membership fees as a way of engaging our own constituencies to ensure their ownership and responsibility in our work.

The increasing importance of grassroots actors, both formal and informal, is undeniable in today’s world. Gone are the days where NGOs may claim to represent the “voices” of communities. Our communities can and do speak for themselves and stand on their own work. They invert power structures through community-driven development and building people-power globally. We believe in the following tenants:

Access. NGOs should work to access, identify and develop leaders and existing solutions within communities. Serving as enablers, we can support accessibility to and sharing of the core resources needed to foster greater impact.

Sustainability. NGOs should promote capacity-building and community ownership to both catalyse the emergence of new grassroots groups and ensure existing groups continue their work self-sufficiently and sustainably. Instead of providing ready-made solutions, the focus should be on connecting likeminded leaders in decentralized networks of information sharing.

Measuring success. NGOs should work with communities to develop new, community-supported, ways of measuring and interpreting success around the values of sustainable change and community ownership.

Reimagining the playing field. NGOs should work to reorient all funding systems to align with these tenants and the under acknowledged needs of grassroots organizations.

As young people fighting for social justice, we make these criticisms and suggestions with the hope that they will contribute to a reimagining of the role, vision and methods of civil society. We recommit our lives to the struggle against inequality, poverty, environmental degradation and all injustices in whatever shape they assume.

We perceive the vision of our letter as an invitation to all—including young people and those in decision-making positions—to take immediate action to transform civil society. Let this letter stand not only as our message to civil society, but also as a broader commitment to move forward with confidence and purpose towards a just, sustainable and peaceful world.

Today, more than 120 world leaders are at the United Nations Headquarters for the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit, to discuss one of the most pressing issues of our times!

Presidents, prime-ministers and all sorts of authorities gathered together to share commitments and pledge to take real action to solve this climate chaos.

But to kick off the debate, and remind all global leaders why we gathered here today, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, from the Marshall Islands along with her beautiful family came to share some wise words filled with inspiration!

This was the message delivered by her today, which knocked all of the people at the General Assembly hall off their chairs, with a long and strong standing ovation!

I just hope that the leaders here will take on the words from Kathy, and deliver real, bold and ambition commitments and will walk the talk!

[EN] Around the world, people from all paths of life are gathering, organizing and taking the streets to put show global leaders we had enough!

We can no longer afford to passively wait and watch our homes flooding, crops disappearing and natural disasters becoming the norm, while they spend years discussing our future in air-conditioned rooms!

It is time to disrupt! And raise together to demand global leaders for real actions, instead of comforting words.

Check out the People’s Climate March website and learn about actions happening around your hood! And please, do get involved!!!! This is the greatest issue of our lifetimes and it gotta need all and each one of us to disrupt this climate chaos!

If you are not able to get out there, and join the over 2000 actions happening in over 160 countries. You must invest your time in learning more about the issue and informing your friends, your family and your community, a good start is the movie Disruption (by PF Pictures) just launched, which tells the story of the making of the march, as well as the global climate movement! (legendas em português)

Martin reminded the delegates attending the PrepCom1 about the importance of engaging and listening to youth, children and future generations since they are the ones who will inherit this new habitat agenda being discussed, and will be directly affected by decisions taken today.

He also reminded us that in order to tackle the challenges we face today, we really will need a tailored and ambition new development agenda. The way we plan our existing cities and address the issue of new cities will determine what SDGs are fulfilled and who is left behind.

The agenda needs to go beyond its focus on just Urban, and focus on an agenda for human settlements everywhere, and it needs to be inclusive of everyone, specially women and young people.

Finally, Martin called attention of all the government delegations attending the PrepCom1 that Youth Participation must not be a one off event. That we can no longer accept hand picked youth participation discussing topics defined by others as youth issues. Youth participation needs to be representative, independent and with emphasis on the whole political process.

The new urban agenda needs to maximise our holistic human development and minimise our ecological footprint. And the only way to achieve that is through dialog, participation and partnerships with the people living in the city/ these places, including youth and children. Nothing about us without us.

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::: João Felipe Scarpelini :::

[EN] I'm a full-time dreamer and activist! I engage with passionate and creative people to create tools, opportunities and capacity that empower individuals and their communities to be the change they want to see in the world!

About me…

I'm a full-time dreamer and activist! I engage with passionate and creative people to create tools, opportunities and capacity that empower individuals and their communities to be the change they want to see in the world!